Selvita Completes $ 5.5 Million Private Placement

09.05.2011

Krakow –Polish drug discovery company Selvita has entered into definitive agreements with investors in Poland to sell, in a private placement, 2.7 million shares of its stock at a price of PLN 5.5 per share, resulting in gross proceeds to the company of PLN 14.85 million ($5.5 million). The capitalisation of the company after the issue will be around $21 million. Selvita expects its stock to be listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange NewConnect market in June 2011. Proceeds from the financing will be used for the ongoing pre-clinical development of Selvita’s drug candidates including the first in class compounds: SEL24 (Pim kinase inhibitors in oncology), SEL120 (anti-mitotic agent with a novel mechanism of action) and SEL113 (oncology and auto-immune disorders). The company will also expand its lab space for outsourcing of drug discovery projects which is the second pillar of Selvita’s business model. The majority of the company shares will continue to be controlled by its management. The largest new shareholder will be Dr. Tadeusz Wesolowski, the founder of Prosper, one of the largest pharmaceutical distributors in Poland who will join Selvita’s supervisory board as its Vice President. The company’s turnover amounted to PLN3.1 mln in 2009 with PLN3 million net loss. Forecasts for this year are not reported. Sel24 is a group of compounds which are specific inhibitors of Pim-1 kinase, which are in the downstream signalling pathways of several oncogenes including FLT3-ITD, Bcr-Abl or Jak2 and play important role in oncogenic transformation. Pim-1 kinases are also markers for poor prognosis. The lead compound, SEL24-1 has shown antitumour activity in vivo in 4 different mouse xenograft models of estrogen resistant breast cancer cells, hematopoietic cancers and other solid tumours at an IC of less than 10nM. Moreover, preliminary results show that the company’s lead compound SEL24-1 is safe and non-toxic in non-neoplastic cells and tissues in vitro and in vivo. First-in-human application is planned for 2012. Furthermore Selvita is developing SEL103 against Alzheimer’s disease in partnership with the Finish Orion Corporation.

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